Field-Induced Partial Disorder in a Shastry-Sutherland Lattice
October 23, 2023
Shown is the BaNd2ZnS5 SSL.
Left: local magnetic susceptibility tensor shown as ellipsoids. Middle: 2-Q magnetic order of ferromagnetic dimers that are decoupled in two magnetic sub-lattices, brown and blue, respectively. Right: magnetic phase diagram shows the field induced phases from 2-Q order of ferromagnetic dimers, to partial disordered liquid phase, then to field polarized phase
Scientific Achievement
Magnetic order of ferro-dimers decoupled into two sublattices and partial disorder induced by magnetic field were experimentally observed in a Shastry-Sutherland Lattice (SSL), BaNd3ZnS5.
Significance and Impact
SSL offers various exotic magnetic quantum states, yet, only a few have ferromagnetic dimers and high-quality crystals are rare. Neutron diffraction shows BaNd2ZnS5 hosts a liquid state of ferro-dimers.
Research Details
- Polarized single-crystal neutron diffraction was used to characterize the single spin anisotropy and estimate the magnetic interactions.
- The metamagnetic state was characterized as a disordered dimer liquid by neutron diffraction.
- A phase diagram was constructed by combining the neutron diffraction results and magnetization data.
“Field-Induced Partial Disorder in a Shastry-Sutherland Lattice,”
Madalynn Marshall, Brianna R. Billingsley, Xiaojian Bai, Qianli Ma, Tai Kong, and Huibo Cao
Nature Communications 14, 3641 (2023). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39409-1
